Boy Problems (Take Two)
by Djinn1
Summary: Okay, sorry to those who voted, but the story AND the listing disappeared so I had to repost. Hopefully everyone can see this! I'll be posting up bits of this when I feel the need for time with these lovely characters; there may be gap between chapters. Which means you have input whether Chapel ends up with Spock. Kirk, or both. Don't be afraid to vote both! It's what I want to do!
1. Chapter 1

Boy Problems

By Djinn

Chapel walked down the hallway of the holding facility, trying not to laugh as she saw Kirk and Spock in a cell at the end. "You can let them go. They're not a threat."

The guard stood to the side of the cell, pointedly not looking at the men. "Ma'am, I can only release them to you."

"Hmmmm. Do I want that?"

She saw Jim roll his eyes and mouth, "Really?" to her. Spock fixed her with what, for him, was a glare.

"I seem to remember sending a memo that this planet was not a place for unescorted males."

Jim's face was a portrait of restraint. "That memo seems to have gone astray."

"Guess you better talk to your comms officer." She met his eyes and shrugged. "You just had to make her do that fan dance. I'd say this is pretty good revenge for that."

"Nyota would not keep vital information from me."

Chapel shrugged again. "She might if she knew you'd only be in here for a minute, since I'd be called immediately."

"She did offer to lead a landing party." Spock shot Jim a look that could only mean "This is on you."

Jim shot him one right back that looked something like, "It was your damn brother's fault."

Chapel folded her arms and settled in for making up more pretend dialogue for them, but Jim turned to her and held his hand out in a beseeching way. "Commander Chapel, please help us."

"You promise to be good?" She moved closer, could feel the snap of the force field. "To mind me?"

His look told her she was asking for it, so she grinned at him, then winked at Spock for good measure. Jim looked somewhat mollified; Spock mostly just looked confused.

"You aren't of much use to me if you're in here. Let 'em out, Sahala."

The guard touched her finger to a blinking panel and the force field dropped. "They are your responsibility now."

"Yep, I get it." She motioned for them to precede her and then admired the view as they stomped away. "Take it easy, fellas. Don't want to get too far away or you'll end up back in that cell."

One of them sighed. She thought it might have been Spock. But they slowed down.

"Emergency relief efforts on this planet are going to be problematic. I need your ship here and the crew to help move the displaced populace. The mudslides took out entire villages. We're still looking for bodies and we're scouting for new areas for the ones who survived to resettle. So I do need your help, Jim, but men have to be accompanied by women at all times when outdoors. It's a pain but there it is."

Jim slowed until he was walking next to her. "The ship is at your disposal. We'll adapt."

"I appreciate that."

"Did you really send a memo?"

"I really did. It went through a lot of people at Command before it got to you, so who knows where it got garbled. Might not have been Ny at all." She looked over at Spock. "You taking all this in up there?"

"I am."

"Nothing like Vulcan hearing. Okay, so here's where we stand."

_End part 1. Do you want this to be Chapel with Spock or with Kirk or with both? I am willing to be swayed by the majority, so leave your preferences if you have them._


	2. Chapter 2

_Voting is still open: do you want Chapel to end up with Spock, Kirk, or both? This segment doesn't necessarily seal the deal on which direction I go. Oh and I should note that my betas are off the hook for this one. All mistakes are my own. Feel free to PM me if you see something egregious LOL._

As he walked into the tent city, Kirk was immediately taken back to his time on Tarsus IV, to the camps set out past the colony, where Kodos had put the bodies before the mass burials and burnings.

Where Kirk had hidden among those bodies—he'd been one of the non-essentials at the time. A child.

"Are you all right?" Chris's voice was soft enough that Spock probably couldn't hear her.

Kirk took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "Just brings back some unpleasant memories." Even if the bodies in these tents were still breathing. He heard children laughing, and a little girl burst out of one of the tents, keeping a doll away from a smaller girl.

The spell was broken. This wasn't Tarsus IV. These people had a chance.

He felt Chris's hand, warm on his back, and leaned into it. "I'll be fine. After taking on Khan and Spock's psycho brother, this should be a cake walk."

She didn't look convinced. "Is this what Tarsus IV looked like?"

"No." Time to put this subject to bed. He glanced at Spock, who was still well ahead of them, clearly not liking the "must be accompanied by a woman" policy. Did he like it even less because the woman was Chris?

She let her hand drop, and nodded to the women sitting outside their tents—a few men were also out but never without their female chaperones. Chris was clearly known and popular—but then why wouldn't she be? She was leading a mission to help them when their own government didn't have the resources. He felt a surge of pride for her; she'd gone such a different route than he'd expected when she left the _Enterprise_ the first time to go to med school.

He leaned in closer. "It's been a while since I've seen you."

"Clothed or naked?" She laughed softly. "Well, you have been pretty busy: Khan, stealing your ship, resurrecting Spock, finding whales in the past..."

"You left out finding God."

"I always forget that one." She bumped her shoulder against his gently. "And you were with Carol, right? After Spock died?"

He shot her a surprised look.

"Jan saw the two of you disembark."

"Ah." Jan had never quite let go of her infatuation. He wondered if Chris had ever told her that they were occasionally bedmates. "I was with her...until David died."

Again the hand on his back. "I'm so sorry, Jim."

He nodded and let out a little sigh. How to explain the strangeness of mourning a son he barely knew? It had leveled him—and it hadn't. And how to explain that what he'd had with Carol had been less about their future and more about trying to reclaim some piece of the past, with their son as the glue. Once David was gone, Carol hadn't wanted anything to do with him. She'd been ugly over the comms when she blamed him for his death.

It was typical of her to make him the villain. David had been on that planet because Carol had pulled him into her world. Kirk shouldn't have been anywhere near when the Klingons found David and Saavik and Spock.

"Gillian was a cutie, too," Chris said, clearly trying to steer them back to less emotionally laden topics. "Thought maybe you had something with her?"

"Pffff."

She laughed. "That's the universal 'I don't care' sound given by men who _did_ care but couldn't land the girl."

"She was after her whales more than me. They were her _Enterprise_."

Chris laughed, a guffaw that made even Spock turn around. "Keep walking, Spock. Our captain just said something very stupid is all."

Spock nodded and turned.

Traitor. "Why stupid?"

"She left them the minute she could. Off to explore space—even if it was the training vessel for high school interns. I didn't have the heart to tell her that when she told me where she was assigned."

He laughed. "Me neither."

Chris laughed again, but it was a gentler sound. "I can't imagine what it might be like finding yourself three hundred years in the future."

"She'll do okay. She was passionate—about her chosen subject—and perky." And charming, willing to trust him, to help him.

They walked in silence for a bit, then Chris called out, "Yo, Sparky." She was clearly talking to Spock, and Kirk started to laugh.

It took Spock a moment longer to realize she was talking to him. He turned around slowly, his eyebrow going up.

"I get that this is tough on your Vulcan masculine pride or whatever, but maybe you should stick with the group. Our camp is this way." She pointed in a direction that was not where he'd been heading. "Unless you want to end up back in that cell?"

"You're enjoying this way too much," Kirk murmured.

"Damned straight."

Spock gave up his following-in-front routine and walked over to them. "I was merely giving the two of you some privacy."

Kirk frowned. Maybe Spock did know about them.

"Sure you were." She motioned for them to follow her and led them through a maze of tents; a big one set apart from the others was filled with what were clearly representatives from the local government. All women.

They nodded to Chris and completely ignored Spock and him.

Then they were back in the maze of tents, following her until they came out into the open to find a mass of Starfleet-issued temporary structures awaiting them. She pointed to one of the larger tents. "That's one of the men's dormitories. We'll need to put more up, but we're going to have to work out how many people we can bring down from the ship. Your standard male-heavy landing parties aren't going to cut it."

"My landing parties aren't male heavy."

She shot him the look he'd given her earlier, the one that meant, "Really?"

"Fine," he said, "you and Spock can figure out the crew complement. I want to see the level of damage. You have anyone who can escort me around?"

"I do, actually." Chris seemed to be trying not to laugh. She walked over to one of the smaller tents. "Doctor Taylor. You want to give a tour to Captain Kirk?"

Gillian walked out and grinned at him. "Told you I'd see you around."

Kirk turned to Chris, who shrugged and said, "She was bored shitless on the intern vessel. I can always use an extra hand." She turned to Gillian. "The captain would like to see the damage. Can you show him what we're working with?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Have fun," Chris said as she winked at him.

He looked over at Spock, who had nodded to Gillian in greeting but didn't appear moved in any way to see her. "You're with Commander Chapel, Spock."

"Aye, Captain." Spock did not look at Chris.

She didn't seem to care. "Settle in, Spock. I'll be back in twenty minutes to get you, and we can figure out how we're going to staff this effort."


	3. Chapter 3

_Voting for the pairing is closed. Thanks to all who voted! There may be more votes to come, we'll see where the plot goes. _

Spock took a sip from the water container he'd been given when he checked into the dormitory, grateful for something to do while he watched Christine make notations on her padds. He'd expected their discussions on how to staff the relief effort to be laden with the sarcasm and humor that had accompanied their walk from the holding cells to the campsite, but as soon as Jim left with Doctor Taylor, Christine had become extremely focused. And much less friendly.

She finished writing and pushed the padds out of the way, studying him. "You look good."

He was not sure what response she expected.

She started to laugh, but it was a hollow sound. "'Thank you' is the normal reply to a compliment. Unless you're unsure of my motivation."

"I have never been certain what motivates you. I thought at one time I did, but you left me to return to medical school."

"No, Spock. I left the ship. _You_ could have still seen me when you were on Earth." Her expression did not change; there was no sign of the frustration she'd shown when she was planning to leave the ship and had still wanted to pursue a relationship with him. "And I wasn't the one who cheated..."

He closed his eyes. "I was under duress."

"Yeah, screwing Zarabeth was probably a huge hardship."

She knew the circumstances, how he'd reverted to a more primitive Vulcan state. "You and I were not bonded." And that had been her doing. He had asked her to make their relationship a more permanent one a few weeks after Platonius, when they were still...happy.

"But you were with me. And that didn't seem to matter, did it?" She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling of the tent. "This is an old fight."

"Indeed." He was grateful she did not know of his interactions with Droxine. It would only add fuel to her argument if she knew he had been so fascinated by the young woman. Even if by then, Christine had already decided to leave the ship, and their relationship had become increasingly bitter. "Jim does not know we were briefly together?"

"Well, since neither of us could figure out what the hell we were doing, why would I burden him with it?"

"Especially when you wanted to sleep with him." Spock kept his face as even as he could, tried not to let any jealousy show.

Jealousy that he felt as strongly now as he had after V'ger, when it had been clear Christine and Jim had become close on Earth. And they'd stayed close even once she'd transferred off the ship. Although it had not been serious enough for her to appear upset when Jim left Starfleet for Antonia. But Spock had seen her with Jim again after he returned to Starfleet. After the re-fusing, everything had been jumbled, his feelings for Christine buried along with most of his emotions. But when Sybok had "helped" him with his pain, Spock had remembered her, how much it had hurt to lose her—to have her reject what he offered, a relationship in the Vulcan way. He'd thought she would be his like his mother, willing to adapt. He'd been wrong.

It had driven him to Gol. Spock had not told Jim that Christine was involved. He had made his decision revolve around Zarabeth and his own behavior on Sarpeidon, about his encounter with Surak, about becoming too human, about losing what made him Vulcan.

He had lied by omission to his friend. Jim would never have slept with Christine if he had known that Spock had such strong feelings for her.

Spock steepled his fingers, leaning back, trying to appear at ease and the slightest bit superior. Although any superiority he tried to assume would disappear the moment he had to follow Christine or some other woman around or risk arrest again. "I am surprised you would invite Doctor Taylor."

She lifted her eyebrow, a perfect Vulcan imitation. "I didn't know the _Enterprise_ would be the ship sent to help."

"But you just sent Jim off with her. In a...playful manner."

Her smile was tight. "You understand the concept of playful now? I heard you were a personality-free zone after the re-fusing."

From Uhura, no doubt. Or perhaps McCoy. He let his own eyebrow rise. "My brother accelerated the integration of my memories and emotions." Although the voyage to Earth's past, to find the whales, had already taken him quite far in that process.

"Did Zarabeth know you had a brother? Because I sure didn't." Her look was hard—and hurt.

He would not tell her that he had told Zarabeth of Sybok when she had told him of her family.

Christine sighed and seemed about to say something, but then Doctor Taylor's voice sounded outside the tent flap, soft but professional. "Commander? We're back."

"Well, come on in and get out of the sun." Before him, Christine changed, her expression morphing to the one she'd shown Jim. Teasing. Easy.

Spock leaned in. "We are not finished."

"We are for now. And for once, on this planet, what I say goes." She stood up, her smile wide and seemingly guileless.

Spock wondered how she thought what she said had not "gone" before. She had embarked on her own journey, leaving him behind with no say. She had not cared that as a Vulcan, recently in a relationship, he would not want such a separation. His need to be physically close to her would have changed in time, if she had just postponed her departure. But she had not wanted to change her timetable for anyone—Spock had known she had meant for a lover. She would not let him become another Roger Korby, a _raison d'etre_.

Jim and Doctor Taylor walked in, and Spock forced his mind back to the crisis at hand, not the old one he could not change and should be better able to handle.

Christine handed Jim one of the water containers. "Here. This'll save you time when you check in."

"Thanks." Jim took a sip then glanced at him, his smile changing to something more somber as he seemed to read Spock far better than Spock wanted to be read. "You okay?"

"I am." Spock knew he was not as adept as Christine at putting on a good face, but he would do his best.


End file.
